Imports and exports of products used in the infrastructure that supports artificial intelligence (AI) will have a noticeable, positive impact on Irish trade and investment this year, Ibec has said. <\/p>\n
However, the outlook for Ireland\u2019s economy remains \u201cvolatile\u201d amid uncertainty around the trajectory of global energy prices and domestic inflation.<\/p>\n
In its latest quarterly economic outlook, the employer\u2019s group said Irish exports overall are experiencing a \u201cwhiplash\u201d effect in 2026. <\/p>\n
Companies, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector, front-loaded exports to the US last year in a bid to circumvent the new US tariff regime. Consequently, global trade growth is expected to decline significantly, according to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis \u2018whiplash\u2019 effect can be seen in more extreme terms in Ireland, driven in particular by a small number of very high value pharmaceutical products manufactured here,\u201d Ibec said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTotal exports from Ireland to the US grew from \u20ac22 billion in January to April 2024, to \u20ac60 billion in 2025 and slowed to \u20ac17 billion in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
One area of trade that is performing well this year is AI-enabling products, including trade in semiconductors and data processing machines, according to the report. <\/p>\n
Again citing WTO figures, Ibec said the Republic is now the ninth-largest importer and exporter of AI equipment in the world. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is more remarkable is the growth of both exports and imports over the past five years,\u201d it added. \u201cImports of AI-enabling equipment and materials respectively have risen from \u20ac10.7 billion in the 12 months to April 2021 to \u20ac29.4 billion in the 12 months to April 2026. <\/p>\n
\u201cExports have risen concurrently over the same period from \u20ac14.3 billion to \u20ac26.7 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n
While it \u201cappears\u201d that a large proportion of the products imported into Ireland are being sent to other markets such as the UK, Ibec said these \u201crising flows\u201d of AI-related trade are evident in investment figures.<\/p>\n
Almost \u20ac6 billion has been invested in information and communication technology (ICT) equipment over the past year, the lobby group said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing early evidence of the impact of AI on our economic figures,\u201d said Gerard Brady, Ibec\u2019s chief economist. <\/p>\n
\u201cDomestic investment in ICT equipment and software has risen to nearly \u20ac6 billion over the past 12 months \u2013 a 50 per cent increase on the same period last year and a doubling from two years ago. Recent investment decisions will support this trend further.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ESRI said last month that it is now forecasting investment levels in ICT equipment to remain higher than historical norms in the short to medium term. Conor O\u2019Toole, a research professor at the think-tank, said at the time that the materials involved, particularly chips, have a short shelf-life.<\/p>\n
At the headline level, Ibec said the outlook for the Irish economy remains volatile. <\/p>\n
The employers lobby group is forecasting consumer price inflation of 3.6 per cent this year, up from 2.2 per cent last year, which will \u201ceat up most of the real income growth in the economy\u201d. <\/p>\n
However, it said inflation could rise closer to 6 per cent if hostilities in the Gulf escalate and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to traffic. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe collapse of the US-Iran ceasefire less than three weeks after implementation began underlines the uncertainty running through the global economy this year,\u201d said Brady.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imports and exports of products used in the infrastructure that supports artificial intelligence (AI) will have a noticeable,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[218,113,5485,37635,4105,61,60,43,150177],"class_list":["post-552130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-economy","tag-energy-costs","tag-energy-crisis","tag-ibec","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}